## PART XII - ALTERNATIVE DATA AND CHANNEL WORK | MODULE 056 # Expert Calls and Channel Checks > Mission. Design compliant interviews that test hypotheses without soliciting material nonpublic information. ## Decision output Objective: Design compliant interviews that test hypotheses without soliciting material nonpublic information. The completed work product must be reproducible from evidence, show the downstream financial or decision effect when material, state the strongest contrary case, and define a dated update rule. ## Explicit operating procedure 1. Write the hypothesis and permitted factual questions before the call. Define what information would change the view and what topics are prohibited or require compliance guidance. 1. Use compliant participants and procedures. Never solicit or use material nonpublic information; stop and escalate if a participant begins providing information that appears restricted. 1. Select respondents across roles, geographies, customer sizes, and competitive positions to reduce sample bias; document recruitment and incentives. 1. Use consistent core questions plus open-ended follow-ups, recording exact dates, respondent context, confidence, and contradictions without overstating representativeness. 1. Triangulate qualitative claims with filings, pricing, product data, competitor evidence, or other independent observations. 1. Convert call evidence into a bounded model input only after defining the population and expected relationship to reported outcomes. ## Required evidence and model bridge - Primary-source set: documented datasets, sampling frame, legal/compliance approval, backtests, source provenance. Preserve exact document/version, date, period, and source location for every material factual input used in expert calls and channel checks. - For each key concept - hypothesis guide, participant screening, MNPI stop rule, sampling, role/incentive, independent corroboration - state whether it is a reported fact, analyst calculation, management claim, external estimate, or judgment. Quantitative concepts must retain raw components and units; qualitative concepts must retain the specific evidence and counterevidence. - Map only economically relevant findings into the model or decision record. Process-control modules such as expert calls and channel checks may have no direct valuation line; in that case document the downstream error or governance risk the control prevents. ## Metrics and calculation controls | Metric / concept | Construction | Required validation | | --- | --- | --- | | independent source count | Number of genuinely independent evidence sources supporting a material conclusion after removing common-origin/circular citations. | independent source count: Reperform the count from the defined population, inspect every material exception, and confirm the denominator/universe did not change between periods. | | signal consistency | Share of independent indicators pointing in the same economic direction after standardizing sign, horizon, and expected lead/lag. | signal consistency: Recalculate independently from cited source data; verify definition, period, units, scope, signs, and any reconciliation to reported financial or operating totals. | | compliance exception rate | Expert-call/channel-check interactions with documented compliance exceptions divided by total interactions, with severity separately tracked. | compliance exception rate: Recalculate from same-scope numerator and denominator; confirm period, units, cohort/geography, and issuer definition; reconcile material differences to filings or operating data. | ## Worked application > Case: a distributor begins to discuss an undisclosed quarter-end customer order. - Reconstruct the relevant reported fact from primary evidence before interpreting the case. For expert calls and channel checks, show the raw components rather than only the resulting ratio or narrative. - Build the causal chain through hypothesis guide, participant screening, MNPI stop rule, sampling, then identify which link is directly observed and which link remains an assumption. - Calculate independent source count, signal consistency, compliance exception rate from sourced components under the reported/base interpretation and at least one skeptical alternative interpretation. - Translate the difference between cases into the variable that matters for expert calls and channel checks: evidence quality, revenue, operating profit/NOPAT, free cash flow, invested capital, financing/dilution, risk, or valuation. Mark non-applicable links instead of inventing them. - Expert consistency test: predefine legal/compliance stop rules and use calls to test, not confirm, the thesis. - Precommit the specific future filing, KPI, customer/supplier observation, regulator action, or market input that would materially invalidate the expert calls and channel checks conclusion. ## Failure tests - FAIL if hypothesis guide cannot be defined and reproduced from the source pack. - FAIL if expert evidence is collected without a predefined hypothesis, participant screening, compliance boundary, source-role context, and independent corroboration. - FAIL if the expert calls and channel checks conclusion depends on an unstated assumption, unreconciled definition, or evidence that cannot be traced to its source/version. - FAIL if evidence materially inconsistent with the expert calls and channel checks conclusion is omitted, reclassified, or dismissed without a documented definition, materiality, causal, timing, and source-quality analysis. ## Completion test A senior reviewer must be able to reproduce the expert calls and channel checks conclusion, vary the most sensitive assumption independently, trace the change through the model, understand the strongest opposing case, and identify the next evidence that would force an update. If any link is missing, the module remains open.